Randy Shore's seven steps to a healthier life

Randy Shore, Vancouver Sun09.24.2013

Once you start eating better and maintaining a healthy weight you don’t get to stop and go back to your old diet. If you want to feel better and live longer, you are going to do this forever.Vancouver Sun
/ screen grab

Where is the wisdom in consuming the sugar of five oranges or apples and the fibre of none? Cut back or eliminate fruit juice and replace it with whole fruit.Chris Mikula
/ The Ottawa Citizen

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Beware of any news headline that claims to reveal the previously unknown key to weight loss.

Science looks at large and complex processes like energy metabolism through a keyhole, isolating each of the hundreds or thousands of moving parts and learning the nature of each. Once the nature of all these complex processes is known, only then can the relationships and synergies between them be understood.

One-off results of studies that isolate a particular part of the process often make sexy headlines, but they seldom — actually never — offer a magic bullet solution for dieters. That doesn’t stop entrepreneurial types from seizing on single study results, packaging a cheap form of fibre, oil or fruit extract and selling it with loud TV ads and slick websites to people desperate for a weight loss solution that won’t require significant changes in diet and lifestyle. Lipozene, coconut oil and garcinia cambogia all spring to mind as good examples.

I recently lost a little more than 25 pounds in three months and it wasn’t terribly complicated. I have spent much of the past two years researching diet and health myths for a television show and Vancouver Sun print and web project called Empowered Health. I used a little of what I learned from talking to nutritionists, scientists and medical professionals and examining well-executed studies in scientific journals to design the method.

At the end of it all, calories in have to equal calories burned. The only way you can get around this simple fact is by vomiting after meals or using huge doses of laxatives that move the food through so fast that no energy is extracted by your body. Both are extremely dangerous and can lead to death. I don’t recommend them.

So, calories in must equal calories burned. That means losing weight requires you to maintain a caloric deficit, meaning you will burn more calories than you consume each and every day until you reach a better balance and a healthier weight.

Before you start this process I feel I should point out that there is no end. Once you start eating better and maintaining a healthy weight you don’t get to stop and go back to your old diet. If you want to feel better and live longer, you are going to do this forever.

Step one: Drink less.

The reason I needed to lose weight in the first place was that I drank too much alcohol. I was overweight and I was damaging my liver, a fact revealed by some scary results of a panel of blood tests ordered by my doctor. I was concerned that I might have the early stages of fatty liver disease and so I stopped drinking completely for a couple of months while I fixed my diet.

I still drink, but I drink far less and I take most nights off from alcohol.

Step two: Stop snacking.

Fat cells do two things. They store energy when it is abundant and they release when energy is in short supply. I over-simplify. Energy metabolism is incredibly complex, involving processes all over the body in nearly every organ and requiring dozens of enzymes, hormones and chemical reactions.

One of the important hormones is insulin, which regulates carbohydrate and fat metabolism. When you eat insulin is produced which helps store energy in the liver and fat cells as, well, fat. A few hours after you eat insulin levels fall allowing your body to begin burning stored energy.

Every time you snack between meals two things happen: You add calories to your daily total and you stop the fat burning process.

You have to eat fewer calories and move around more to create a caloric deficit. That means you might be hungry before meals. Some of you will be upset by this feeling. Most North Americans go for days or weeks without every really feeling hungry, stuffing a mouthful of something in at the slightest pang and eating on a schedule whether they are hungry or not.

Hunger is OK. It’s normal and it’s a good sign that your fat cells and liver are burning stored energy.

Step three: Change what you eat.

A typical dinner plate is divided by thirds into meat, starch and veg. That’s probably too much meat and too much starch for an adult, unless you have a very physical job. If you are still reading, that probably isn’t the case.

You need to add a fourth element to your dinner plate, reducing the portion of meat and starch to make it fit. It’s fibre. Beans, chickpeas, lentils, kamut, kale.

Start by cutting your meat portion in half and reducing any white starches — pasta, white rice, white bread, potatoes — to just a couple of mouthfuls. Or even better make brown rice or legumes — peas, beans, chickpeas and lentils — the starch at your meal. It’s a bit of a riff on the Caveman Diet and the Mediterranean Diet.

White foods on their own don’t make you fat, but they add calories that are burned off and stored quickly, leaving you hungry too soon. High fibre choices provide slower burning fuel and help balance your good and bad fats, so you don’t run into trouble with cholesterol.

Make a plate that includes a piece of meat no bigger than a credit card, legumes instead of fast-burning starch and a vegetable or two. Feel free to dress vegetable and legume dishes liberally with olive oil.

At breakfast oatmeal, eggs, whole grain toast, fruit, berries, nuts and yogurt are all good choices.

Step Four: Eat before and after meals

This step doesn’t technically violate the no snacking rule, rather it exploits a flaw in the mechanism your brain uses to tell you to stop eating. There is a bit of lag time in the system that informs your brain when you’ve had enough to eat, just enough time to have a second plate of food.

Keep a dish on the table filled with raw walnuts, almonds and pecans. A few salted peanuts mixed through makes it a little tastier if you are missing the salt. Walnuts are best for their healthy fat content and fibre. I have a few dried cranberries in my dish too.

About 15 to 20 minutes before you sit down to eat lunch or dinner, have a few raw nuts, just a palmful. You have just added fibre and healthy fats to your diet and started the process of satiety, giving your brain a little head start to signal you to stop eating.

Eat a modest portion at mealtime and when you finish your plate, wait. Rather than a second plate of food now is the time to have a few more nuts and craisans or some salad.

Step five: Fruit, not juice. Coffee, not dessert.

Fruit juice seems like a good idea, but fruit is far better. Fruit juice contains as many calories as soda pop and has most or all of the fibre removed. Where is the wisdom in consuming the sugar of five oranges or apples and the fibre of none? Cut back or eliminate fruit juice and replace it with whole fruit.

If your coffee resembles a sundae, you don’t need me to tell you that isn’t going to work. Coffee in its simplest form has zero calories. Fraps, capps and latts fall into the occasional treat category.

Step six: Cut out the sugar

I don’t really have to tell you this, but in a culture when food is super-abundant like ours, empty calories are not too useful. If you are trying to maintain a caloric deficit and keep your fat cells in energy burning mode nothing will undo all your hard work faster than sugar.

If you like cake, candy, cookies or pop have one on Saturday when you are at your most active. The rest of the week, just say no.

Step seven: Walk or bike everywhere you can

It might not be as fast or convenient, but walking and biking are just the sort of long, slow exercise that exploits the fat-burning potential of a low-insulin state between meals. If you want to see quick progress toward a healthier weight, walk before breakfast and after dinner, the latter to lower your insulin levels faster after the biggest meal of the day and promote a longer period of fat-burning while you sleep.

Let’s review.

Add fibre at meals with nuts, legumes and more vegetables. Keep your portions small and resist having seconds.

Subtract meat and fast-burning carbs such as potatoes, white rice, pasta, and white bread. Avoid pop, fruit juice and other sugary treats. If you don’t keep that stuff around the house, you won’t be as tempted.

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Randy Shore's seven steps to a healthier life

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